Education on the Dalton plan

Front matter

2t Cornell ^niberiiitp

3tbaca, A. SiCibrarp

Cornel) University Library

Contents

FAGB

Inteodxtction. By T. P, Nunn, M.A., D.Sc, Professor, Department of Education, University of London and Head of London Day' Training College, University of London xi

CHAPTER

Appendix

I. Assignments Which Have Been Used in

British Elementary Schools . . . 227

II. Assignments Which Have Been Used in the

County Secondary School, Streatham 249

III. Some Opinions op British Elementary Head Mistresses and Children on the Dai/ton Plan 269

Introduction

Teaching and learning are correlative occupations which have been carried on since the beginnings of human society. In this book Miss Helen Parkhurst inquires how they may best be adjusted to one another, and offers a definite answer to the question.

To many persons, teachers as well as laymen, both inquiry and answer may seem, at this time of day, to be superfluous. Does not everyone know well enough what it is to be taught and to learn? And is not discussion of so simple a matter bound to prove one of those exercises in word-spinning which delight pedants and cranks, but are a cause of just irritation to sensible people? To these objections it is enough to reply that the matter cannot be so simple, for it is one upon which wide and important differences of opinion have existed, and stiU exist. A fresh debate, conducted in the practical spirit which inspires the following pages, must therefore be useful, if it does no more than challenge us to re-examine accepted ideas and reassure ourselves of their soundness. In education, as in all the arts of life, a certain "scepticism of the instrument" (as Mr. WeUs has called it)

sdi INTRODUCTION

is constantly needed if progress is not to end in the stagnation of rontine.

The central question about teaching and learning may be put thus : What is the proper distribution of initiative and responsibility between teacher and taught? The answer to be given obviously depends upon the pupil's natural attitude towards learning, his insight (conscious or unconscious) into his own needs, and the strength of his will to satisfy them. Upon these points very pessimistic views once prevailed. A boy, it was held, cannot possibly know what is good for him, and having crept, like a snail, unwillingly to school, will learn there only what he is made to learn. Initiative and responsibility belong, then, almost wholly to his teachers. It is for them to decide not only what shall be taught, but also how and when it shall be learnt; the boy's share in the business is simply to perform his task — or, failing that, to pay the penalty attached to laziness, stupidity, or contumacy. This theory does not actually deny that boys and girls have natural interests and are keen to pursue them, but it regards them as the foe, rather than the friend, of the iSchoolmaster.V"Go and see what Budge and Tod are doing, and tell them not to" expresses its general attitude towards the initiative of youth. As regards school learning, its working hypothesis is the idea that the child's mind is a wax tablet scraped clean to receive such characters as the teacher may choose to impress on it, or (as

INTRODUCTION xiii

Dickens' Mr. M'ClioakumcMId thought) an emptyvessel to be filled at his discretion with "imperial gallons of fact."

In its cruder forms this view will hardly be found now in any responsible quarter. Even Mr. Bernard Shaw, who thinks so poorly of schools, does not deny that boys and girls are often far happier in them than outside. And there is no doubt that they are happier and spend their schooldays more profitably than they used to do because the modern schoolmaster has, so to speak, recognized their natural activities oflficially, and allows them to be to some extent partners in the management of their own lives — in short, because Mr. M 'Choakumchild is definitely dead. Nevertheless, it is possible for a cynic to maintain that his isoul goes marching on and will continue to do so while two institutions stand which, taken together, express the essence of his educational philosophy. Those institutions are the customary school time-table and the customary system of class instruction. For the time-table originated in the assumption that the teacher should dictate what his pupils are to do at every hour of their school lives, and the class-system in the belief that he may ignore the varied modes and rates of movement which distinguish one mind from another, and may treat five and twenty minds (or a hundred) as if they were one.

Now it may be said in defence that an institution may be very valuable, even though its origin be xiv INTRODUCTION

disreputable; that "whate'er is best administered is best"; and that, as a matter of fact, an immense amoimt of good work is done in schools where no alternative to the class method has ever been thought of. These things are doubtless true. The old machinery has been captured by a new spirit ; but the very competence and hmnanity with which it is now handled have led many observers to "scepticism of the instrument" — ^have led them, that is, to doubt whether the class-method has not pressed far beyond its limits of usefulness, and whether it should not be supplemented, if not wholly replaced, by another.

Some time ago the writer of these lines expressed such doubts in a passage which — since it looks beyond the disease to a possible remedy — ^he may be allowed to quote :

*"You all know how a familiar word, persistently stared at suddenly becomes almost alarmingly strange and meaningless — ^how (as William James said) it seems to glare back from the page with no speculation in its eyes. You will have something like the same uncanny experience if you watch the operation of a school time-table after rigorously clearing your miud of its familiar associations. From 10.15 to 11.00 twenty-five souls are simultaneously engrossed in the theory

* From a Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association. Printed in the Mathematical Gaeette for March, 1918.

INTRODUCTION xv

of quadratic equations ; at the very stroke of the hour their interest in this subject suddenly expires, and they all demand exercise in French phonetics ! Like the agreement of actors on the stage, 'their unanimity is -wonderful' — ^but also, when one comes to think of it, ludicrously artificial. Can we devise no way of conducting our business that would bring it into better accord with the natural ebb and flow of interest and activity? It may be that the specialist system, often a tireless complication of the present arrangements, would make a fluid organization perfectly feasible. There must still be, no doubt, certain fixed periods for collective work; but during the rest of the day each specialist's room might be a 'pupil room' in which boys or girls of all standing would work, singly or in groups, in independence of one another, and for variable lengths of time. It would, of course, be necessary to record each pupil's progress and to see that he followed a reasonable programme of studies, but I find no reason why in such matters methods like those of the Caldecott Community should not be universalized."

Tears before these words were uttered the speaker, like numberless other teachers, had worked something like this plan with a group of senior pupUs; and he had before his mind, of xvi INTRODUCTION

course, Professor Dewey's work and Miss Mason's, and especially the striking reforms in the education of young children inspired by Dr. Montessori. But he was quite unaware that what he put forward as a dream of the future was, whUe he spoke, an actual fact on the farther side of the Atlantic. It was left to Miss Belle Eennie to add to her many services to progress in education by bringing Miss Parkhurst's courageous and wellthought-out experiment to the notice of British teachers.

Miss Eennie 's brief account of the "Dalton Laboratory Plan" appeared in the Education Supplement of The Times in May, 1920, and her swollen post-bag began at once to show how widely dissatisfaction with the class-method is spread and how many teachers are looking for a better instrument of instruction. One month later, a largescale repetition of the American experiment was initiated by Miss Eosa Bassett at the Streatham County Secondary School; m August the first vintage of her results were discussed at the Cardiff meeting of the British Association. Thereafter, interest grew so rapidly that, in July, 1921, when Miss Parkhurst came to England, accommodation could not be found for all who wished to hear her expound the "plan," and when Miss Bassett opened the doors of her school to inquirers for three days the roads of Streatham were encumbered with over two thousand pilgrims !

Nothing need be said here about the plan itself,

INTEODUCTION xvii

for Miss Parkliurst explains it witli careful detail in the following chapters, and Miss Bassett has added an account of her experience in adapting it to the conditions of a large English secondary school. It is, however, permissible to one who has the honour of introducing the book to its public, to commend the scientific temper in which it is written. Miss Parkhurst has envisaged a definite problem of great practical importance: namely, how to secure from the vast volume of educational effort expended in schools a richer harvest of individual culture and efficiency. The "Dalton Laboratory Plan" is her solution. No one recognises more clearly than she that there are others, and that her own is not final, but is susceptible of useful modification and development. When Dr. Montessori's work became known in this country, the movement towards what is somewhat barbarously called "auto-education" received a remarkable impulse. Everywhere reformers are now busy opening up and exploring new ways of conducting the ancient work of education. Some are "wilder comrades," sworn to cut themselves off from the old tradition and everything that belongs to it. These may regard as a miserable compromise a scheme which does not demand even the abolition of public examinations ! But to no less adventurous spirits, who would hasten slowly and keep on firm ground, the "Dalton Plan" offers a path of progress which may safely be taken by xvi INTRODUCTION

course, Professor Dewey's work and Miss Mason's, and especially the striking reforms in the education of young children inspired by Dr. Montessori. But he was quite unaware that what he put forward as a dream of the future was, while he spoke, an actual fact on the farther side of the Atlantic. It was left to Miss Belle Eennie to add to her many services to progress in education by bringing M!iss Parkhurst's courageous and wellthought-out experiment to the notice of British teachers.

Miss Eennie 's brief account of the "Dalton Laboratory Plan" appeared in the Education Supplement of The Times in May, 1920, and her swollen post-bag began at once to show how widely dissatisfaction with the class-method is spread and how many teachers are looking for a better instrument of instruction. One month later, a largescale repetition of the American experiment was initiated by Miss Eosa Bassett at the Streatham County Secondary School; in August the first vintage of her results were discussed at the Cardiff meeting of the British Association. Thereafter, interest grew so rapidly that, in July, 1921, when Miss Parkhurst came to England, accommodation could not be found for all who wished to hear her expound the "plan," and when Miss Bassett opened the doors of her school to inquirers for three days the roads of Streatham were encumbered with over two thousand pilgrims !

Nothing need be said here about the plan itself,

INTRODUCTION xvii

for Miss Parkhurst explains it with careful detail in the following chapters, and Miss Bassett has added an account of her experience in adapting it to the conditions of a large English secondary school. It is, however, permissible to one who has the honour of introducing the book to its public, to commend the scientific temper in which it is written. Miss Parkhurst has envisaged a definite problem of great practical importance: namely, how to secure from the vast volume of educational effort expended in schools a richer harvest of individual culture and efficiency. The "Dalton Laboratory Plan" is her solution. No one recognizes more clearly than she that there are others, and that her own is not final, but is susceptible of useful modification and development. "When Dr. Montessori's work became known in this country, the movement towards what is somewhat barbarously called "auto-education" received a remarkable impulse. Everywhere reformers are now busy opening up and exploring new ways of conducting the ancient work of education. Some are "wilder comrades," sworn to cut themselves off from the old tradition and everything that belongs to it. These may regard as a miserable compromise a scheme which does not demand even the abolition of public examinations! But to no less adventurous spirits, who would hasten slowly andkeep on firm ground, the "DaltonPlan" offers a path of progress which may safely be taken by xviii INTKODUCTION

all who have the gifts of intelligence, devotion, and enterprise.

Boldness and originality are typical qualities of American education, and we may hope that the present close and happy association between an American teacher and the English men and women who are following her lead may also become typical. Typically American, too, is the generosity which has prompted Miss Parkhurst to assign her pecuniary interest in this book to a noble English institution — ^the Heritage Craft School for Crippled Children at Chailey. On all grounds we may wish good-speed to her enterprise.

T. P, NuNN.

EDUCATION

ON

EDUCATION ON THE DALTON PLAN